DROP IN SEASON

May 21, 2018Posted by: Matt Albrizio

Summer is just around the corner and that means…it’s drop in season. Many of you will see a bunch of new visitors in the coming months and we’re here to get you set with a plan on how to tackle drop in tees.

You’re probably stuck because: you’ve been preordering apparel. That means you have very low inventory- or none at all. So, let’s start here: we’re going to break a rule: You need to take on some inventory. Again, this is only for those who have a consistent flow of drop ins and visitors.

You might be wondering: “Why can’t we put this on your website and when someone visits, they can go to the website and order a shirt?”… The issue is this: apparel items are “impulse buys”. See it, buy it. People want the item right then and there. It’s a souvenir from their trip. They don’t want to wait 2 weeks for it to arrive. So if you have visitors, they want stuff to buy right there and then.

So how many should you order? I would recommend a basic order of 24 or 37 to start. Don’t go nuts and order 150. We can always reorder these in specific sizes.

What if I members want to buy these? If you are going to take on inventory, you need to compensate yourself for this. Your members have all year to order apparel and preorder it. The drop in will probably visit once in a lifetime. So, protect that inventory. The best way to protect is with one of the following strategies:

Simply say no. Just say “Sorry, we’ll do an order for the gym soon. I need to keep these for visitors only"

Let price do the talking. If a member wants to buy the shirt, sell the tee for 29.99 instead of 24.99. Keep the price lower for visitors and drop ins. Just don’t let members deplete your stock.

Again, if the shirt is popular, great. Run a preorder for it right there and then.